Zenn Diagram

by Wendy Brant

  “She lost a lot that night. And I know we have a good life now, but it’s maybe not the life she planned. And Michael Franklin brings up those feelings all over again.”

  “I get it, Dad. I do. But that’s between her and Michael Franklin, or God, or whoever. She can’t dictate my life just because hers didn’t turn out as expected.”

  He nods. “She’ll realize that. Eventually. You just have to give it some time.” He moves on to a heavier topic. “But the scholarship, Eva … That’s a pretty big deal.”

  “I wouldn’t have won it anyway, Dad. It wasn’t a sure thing.”

  “That’s not the point.” He takes out the tiny wooden cross he carries in his pocket and rubs it between his fingers. “I wish I could send you wherever you want to go to college. But I can’t, Eva. Being a pastor and having five kids has made that kind of impossible.”

  I feel a surge of embarrassment, for him and his honesty, and for my actions.

  “You are a strong and smart young woman. That was a great opportunity. I’m upset that you gave up your chance.” He puts the cross back in his pocket. “I’m just … disappointed.”

  My teenage rebellion melts away. I hate letting him down. How do I explain it was a selfless act, rooted in everything he cares about most? Before I can start, he pats my leg and leaves.

  Chapter 36

  Still no Zenn. But why no text? How long does it take to shoot out a quick text?

  Charlotte tries to reassure me. Maybe he’s just freaked out by his feelings for me, she suggests. I give her a look.

  “What?” she says.

  “He’s a guy, Charlotte. And this isn’t a Nicholas Sparks book.”

  “Guys can get freaked out, too.”

  I’ve told Charlotte about the other night — I had to tell someone. She was appropriately stunned and excited, wanting to hear every detail. Considering that up until recently I had never even kissed a guy, the speed of my sexual progress is somewhat shocking. But I explained that I’m kind of like a puppy who has been in a crate all day while its owners are at work. When he kissed me, it was like he let me out and I have a lot of energy and affection to expend, lots of time to make up for. Charlotte and Josh still haven’t had sex, which surprises me a little. I guess I didn’t picture Josh as the patient type. But he keeps surprising me. I touched his arm the other day and his fractal felt almost … content. The fuzzy, drunken feeling was gone and the noise from his dad was drowned out by the pleasant glow that I know comes from Charlotte.

  Funny how I was so worried about his negative effect on my friend that I didn’t think much about her positive effect on him.

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to smother you,” Charlotte suggests.

  “Maybe I was horrible.”

  “He’s a guy,” Charlotte says, repeating my words back to me. “Isn’t sex like pizza to them? Even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good?”

  I punch her lightly in the arm. “You’re not making me feel any better.” But Zenn didn’t act like anything about the other night was horrible. His quickened breath on my skin, the intensity of his mouth on mine, the small, quiet, satisfied noise he made …

  So I confess to her about the scholarship.

  “Do you think he found out?” I ask her. “That I withdrew? He’d be really pissed …”

  “How would he find out?”

  I shrug.

  “I’m sure he’s just busy, Ev. Didn’t you say he works, like, nine jobs?”

  I’m sure that’s it. He’s swamped with work.

  My mom and I are rather politely ignoring each other. Since I haven’t been leaving the house to see Zenn, maybe she thinks I’ve ended it. I know that’s what she hopes. And I know she’s still mad about the scholarship. Whether they think it was a good decision or not, it still feels like the right thing to me. Zenn needs it. I’ll survive without it. I treat my mom civilly, but not warmly. Even the kids are picking up on it.

  “Is Mommy mad at you?” Essie asks me after my mom and I slip past each other in the kitchen without a word.

  “A little,” I tell her.

  “Did you do somefing naughty?”

  I smile at her and run my fingers through her silky hair. “I gave something away that Mommy thinks I should have kept.”

  Essie looks confused. “But it’s nice to give fings away.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Like if someone is hungry and we take food to the food panty.”

  I laugh. “Pantry, Ess. Food pantry.”

  She nods. “Pantwee,” she repeats.

  “Close enough.”

  Zenn finally texts me and apologizes. His phone crapped out and they don’t have a landline and it took him two days to get to the Verizon store to get it fixed. He skipped school to work because they’re late on their rent, and then spent two days trying to make up the work that he missed at school. He wants to see me but, in a rare incidence of maternal presence, his mom is hanging around the apartment. He can’t come to my house and I’m not brave enough to suggest we meet at the church again.

  So we just decide to drive around in his truck. I tell my mom I’m meeting Charlotte for coffee and head out on foot before she can ask questions. I’m eighteen years old and maybe she realizes there isn’t much she can do to stop me. Zenn meets me three blocks away from my house. I climb into his truck and he circles the downtown twice before pulling into the parking lot by the beach. As soon as he puts the truck in Park we are on each other like lint on black corduroys. We kiss hungrily and awkwardly over the gearshift. It’s too cold to go in the bed of the truck. I’m too tall to climb onto his lap. It’s a frustrating predicament.

  Eventually we resign ourselves to the fact that neither of us is adventurous enough or brave enough (or small enough) to do much in the cab of a pickup truck. We settle for an intense make-out session that leaves me feeling loose and unraveled to my core. Then he drives me home and I slink into my room before my mom can see my sexually frustrated swollen lips and beard-reddened face.

  Chapter 37

  But the next lull when I don’t hear from him is longer — almost three full days — and I know it can’t be his phone again. He may be at school, but he doesn’t meet me for lunch. I try not to text him too often, but I know I’ve got to be coming across as a little needy.

  Me: Hey!

  Me: Hey you.

  Me: You work too hard.

  Me: Hey! You know … there’s this place called school? You should go sometime.

  Me: I miss you.

  Me: All work and no play …

  Nothing.

  Finally on day three he texts me back and I feel like an addict who finally got a fix.

  Zenn: Hey

  Me: Hey! Everything OK?

  There is a long pause — maybe three minutes, where he doesn’t text back. Finally …

  Zenn: Not really

  Oh, crap. Something is up. Something is definitely up.

  Me: What’s wrong? Want me to come over?

  Zenn: My mom is home

  Me: Oh

  Zenn: Meet at the park?

  The park! Where we had our first date! Maybe everything is fine.

  Me: OK.

  I don’t question anything: why we’re meeting at the park, why he seems so serious, what has happened in the last three days. I feel confident that everything will be all right once we see each other.

  The park is nearly empty. The biting wind and new snow have scared away all the afternoon playgroups, and there isn’t even any sun to trick your mind into thinking it’s warmer. I see him sitting on a bench rather than the play set. No blanket, no pizza. He looks at his phone and bounces his knee up and down.

  I sit down and nudge him with my shoulder.

  “Hey, you.”

  He gives a little half smile. Well … a quarter smile. Like, the kind of polite smile he might give to a teacher.

  His knee starts bouncing again.

  “What’s going on?”

  He stares up
at the sky and sighs.

  “Eva …”

  Oh, no. His voice is like a funeral. Something bad is coming. I look at those lashes and that smooth skin that is still bronze even as tiny snowflakes swirl around us.

  “Is … your mom okay?” I think about her drinking, about her manic episodes. Could she have gone off the deep end?

  “Yeah, she’s fine. I guess. As good as she gets.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “We can’t —” His voice cracks a little and he clears his throat. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.” He is calm and quiet, but he doesn’t sound like himself.

  I couldn’t have possibly heard him right and I don’t want to panic. I don’t want to freak out. But … what the actual fuck?! I had tea with him less than a week ago, for the very first time, and now he’s saying we should break up?

  Was he using me? Tricking me out of my virginity somehow? Does that even happen in real life?

  “Why do you say that?” I wonder if his parents found out. But if I didn’t let my parents dictate our relationship, I’m not sure why he thinks his parents should have a say.

  “I know about the scholarship,” he says. “How could you do that, Eva?” He sounds angry with me, which I guess I knew he would be. But I did it for him! Surely he must see that.

  I try to make light of it. “You deserve it, Zenn. I was afraid they’d hold your dad’s past against you, and I’d get the orphan pity.”

  His voice is tight. “That’s for them to decide. Not you.”

  Suddenly I remember the conversation we had at his kitchen table, about his mom letting that woman pay for his school supplies. He works three jobs so he doesn’t have to accept help from anyone. And here I try to “help.”

  Oh, man. What have I done?

  “You shouldn’t have to pay for what he did,” I tell him. “You’ve already paid enough.”

  “So have you.”

  “Zenn. Come on. Your situation is much worse than mine.”

  “Eva. You can’t touch anything!”

  I put my hand on his. “I can touch you.”

  He pulls away. “That’s not enough. Not forever.”

  “It’s enough for me.”

  “No, it’s not. You are not the kind of girl who gives up everything for a guy. That is not the kind of girl I would fall in love with.”

  Wait. Did he just admit he has fallen in love with me? Or did he say that he wouldn’t because I’m that kind of girl?

  “I’m not letting you give up anything for me.”

  “I’m not giving up. I’ll still go to college. I’ll figure something out. We don’t need to break up …”

  “Have you finished even one application since we met?”

  My silence becomes my answer. He’s right. I’ve been a little distracted.

  “I am not enough,” he says forcefully. “This is not enough for the rest of your life.”

  I feel like he has slapped me. He doesn’t know how “enough” this is, how long I’ve waited.

  “How do you know what’s enough for me?”

  “Because I know, Eva. You are bigger than this …” — he searches for words — “this barricaded life you’ve been living. You deserve everything.”

  “But not you.”

  “You deserve more than me.”

  “I think I should decide —”

  “But you won’t. Because this feels good now. But someday you’ll resent me. This is your chance. I’m not going to let you throw it away for me.”

  We sit in silence for a minute and my mind is spinning with a million different arguments. His eyes are glistening from the wind, or maybe from something else.

  “So. You’re breaking up with me?”

  He swallows. “I have to.”

  I take off my glasses and press my mittened fingers to my eyes. I’m not crying — not yet, anyway — but it’s only a matter of time. I feel it threatening, like nausea.

  “For my own good, huh?”

  “Eva —”

  I swallow, nod and put my glasses back on. A part of me wants to reason with him, to beg, to make him change his mind. But what’s the point?

  “Okay. Fair enough.” One tear escapes my treacherous eyes and I swipe at it with my mitten. I get up to walk away.

  “Eva,” he says. But when I pause, he doesn’t say anything else. So I keep walking.

  Chapter 38

  I don’t cry on the way home because I don’t actually believe this has happened. He really likes me. I know it. We are amazing together. You just don’t break up with someone when things are that good.

  But he doesn’t follow me. He doesn’t chase me down, offer me a ride, tell me he was just kidding. He lets me walk away. So when I get back to my house and he still hasn’t texted me to say I changed my mind, I lose it. I close the door to my room and collapse on my bed and sob like my life depends on it.

  My mom knocks first and walks in. “Honey?” Her voice is soft, concerned. “What happened?”

  I don’t answer, but I bet she already knows. She rubs my back and I let her.

  “Well,” I say, my voice pitifully clogged with snot, “you got what you wanted.”

  “Eva. This is not remotely what I wanted.”

  I don’t want to believe her — I want to wallow in my teenage self-pity — but she doesn’t look smug. She doesn’t look happy.

  “He dumped me. And not because I couldn’t touch him, like you thought. No. Because I sacrificed something for him. What the fuck?!”

  “Eva.” Her voice is stern. I don’t usually swear in front of adults.

  “No, Mom. Seriously. All my life I’ve been preached to about sacrificing. Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice, right? But I sacrifice and what do I get for it? Kicked to the curb.”

  “I don’t think giving up your future for a cute boy is exactly what Jesus would do.”

  I try not to lose my temper. “Wow. You guys all must really think I’m an idiot.”

  “We don’t —”

  I cut her off. “I didn’t give up the scholarship because Zenn is cute. Give me a little credit. I did it because he needs it more than me. He deserves it more than me. My life has been a cakewalk compared to his. He basically lost his dad, too. And his mom, really, and he didn’t have you and dad to rescue him. And now he has a chance to start over, to have a future. And I could maybe help give that to him. Why is that such a horrible thing?”

  My mom doesn’t answer.

  “Seriously. I may not have learned a lot from church — hell, I don’t even believe most of it — but I learned that love is putting someone else’s needs ahead of your own. It’s what Jesus did. It’s what you did for me. Is it all just a load of crap?”

  My mom sighs and strokes my hair. “No. You’re right.”

  I look up at her through tears. “I’m right?”

  “You’re right. That’s what love is. It’s what we’ve taught you. It’s what we’ve tried to live.”

  “Yeah,” I say sarcastically. “You also taught me about forgiveness. And how’s that working out for you?”

  “One lesson at a time, Eva.”

  I smile a little.

  She sections my hair and starts to braid it, like she used to. I close my eyes and wish I were little again, back before love and heartache and complications.

  “I could touch him, you know.” I surprise myself by saying it out loud. I hadn’t planned on telling her, but something about her braiding my hair makes me feel young and safe, like back when I would tell her everything. And what does it matter now, anyway? My days of touching him are over.

  “Hmmm?”

  “I could touch him and he didn’t give me fractals.”

  Her hands still mid-braid. “What? Are you serious?”

  I nod and watch a hundred different emotions cross her face: confusion, joy, fear, panic.

  “Nothing?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing.”

  I wait for her to process
what I’ve said because I know there will be a lot more questions: what we’ve done, how far we’ve gone. But she surprises me. She doesn’t dive in to the parental inquisition, just thinks for at least a full minute and then asks rhetorically, almost as if she’s asking herself, “Why him?”

  There is a trace of jealousy in her voice. All these years she has wanted me to be able to reach out and hold her hand. All this time she has tried so hard to help me with my fractals, and here this boy — whose dad killed my parents — is the one I can touch.

  “I don’t know. The only thing I can think is that he was there the night of the accident. His mom was pregnant.” Am I about to cry again? “She held me, did you know that?”

  A tear rolls down my mom’s cheek and she swipes at it with one hand.

  “She held me until the police came, and Zenn was …” Now a tear slides down my cheek as well. “He was there. Inside her, I mean. And I know it sounds weird and impossible and just … crazy, but maybe he comforted me? Like, maybe she held me against her belly and somehow …” I can’t finish the thought because I’m full-on crying now, and so is my mom.

  “I didn’t know she held you,” my mom says through her tears. “I didn’t know that.”

  I nod, and my mom wraps her arms around me and I press my face into her softness.

  “They are so sorry, Mom. All of them.”

  “I know,” she says. “I know they are.” And I can tell she believes it, finally.

  She holds me until eventually our tears subside.

  “Do you think he can … cure you?” she asks.

  It’s not something I’ve even thought about.

  “I mean, do you think him not giving you fractals is a start? Like maybe, eventually …”

  I shrug. I’m still getting fractals, but they don’t bother me as much now. They are the stories of people’s lives and maybe it’s better to know people’s truths than the false faces they sometimes put on. Maybe I should just embrace the fractals a little. Let them help me understand people better. A few years ago I saw a meme that said, Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. At the time I bitterly thought, Yeah, no kidding. But maybe it’s okay to know what battles people are fighting. Maybe that’s how it should be — all of us with our struggles on display.